


035 - Sad Van

by storiesaboutvan



Category: Catfish and the Bottlemen (Band)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Reader-Insert, Sick/Sad Van
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-12 05:31:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17461529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesaboutvan/pseuds/storiesaboutvan
Summary: Filling the prompt “hiya !! i really love you’re writing (especially the ones where van climbs into the bath and shower with the reader) and i was wondering if you could do another intimate piece like that, like even when van and the reader aren’t necessarily romantically involved but just depend on each other for comfort yknow ? so like, maybe if van was upset and the reader and him are both just standing in the shower or laying in the bath together ? just comforting each other with soft touches and hushed words x”





	035 - Sad Van

**Author's Note:**

> I’m excited. Alright, because I’ve already posted a fic that was set primarily in a shower, I didn’t focus too much on that, but I worked it in. My main goal was to show that gentle comfort.

"You know it doesn't matter what they think. You said that yourself. It only matters that people are coming to the shows," you tried to reason out for him. He was too upset to listen. You sat by Van's side as he attempted to play Fifa. He was competing against the ghost in the machine, and he was losing. That was a rare event within itself, but combined with Van's uncharacteristic sadness, and his genuine worry about the bad album review, everything about the situation was just wrong. He was chewing his bottom lip and trying to hold back tears by pulling his eyebrows into a frown. "Van?" He started to smash the controller's buttons harder, and the ball went into the wrong net. He threw the controller at the floor and it smashed into pieces. The game automatically paused, leaving the room to be filled with only the sound of the refrigerator motor in the background, and Van's heavy breathing at the forefront.

You stood up and left the room, giving him space for a minute. In the bathroom you ran the shower and let the steam fill the room. You stood at the end of the hallway, watching him. He had his elbows resting on his legs, and his head in his hands. He didn't sound like he was crying, but his breathing was not even close to being normal. You walked to kneel in front of him. You touched the top of his head, patting gently. He leant into the touch a little. "Come on," you said, and stood up. He lifted his head and wiped his eyes and nose on his sleeve. "Come on," you repeated, "shower. It will make you feel better." He looked at you and it was heartbreaking to see him like that.

Van had been your best friend your entire life. In preschool he'd given you his blue paint. He got in trouble for it, too. You'd mixed the blue with the other colours and he was blamed. You remember it being your earliest memory of guilt. You felt like you owed it to look after him from that point onwards. So, that's what you did. Through the hangovers, breakups, bad shows, bar fights… all of it, you were always there to sticky tape the boy together and send him back out into the world as the happy Van everyone knew.

He followed you to the bathroom, and you hesitated while you tried to determine if he was able to get undressed and shower himself. He sat down on the edge of the tub and resumed the head-in-hands position. He'd never been like that before. The quietness, the helplessness… it was new. You moved closer to him. He spread his legs for you to stand between them. He moved his arms and rested his head on your stomach. You ran your fingers through his hair. "Shower first, then we'll talk about it," you said.

"Nothing to talk about. I'm done," he replied monotone. Of all the things you could call Van McCann, a quitter sure as fuck was not one of them.

"Alright," you said, letting it slide. "I still want you to shower though. Arms up," you instructed and he followed. You kept instructing him to remove items of clothing, and you waited for the point where it would get awkward. It didn't come though. The air was already so filled with Van's tension and mood that there probably wasn't any space for another negative. He stepped into the shower and put one hand flat against the wall, leaning his weight on that arm. His head hung down, and his hair quickly flattened and fell around his face. You stood at the edge of the shower and watched him for a minute. He didn't move. "I'll be back," you told him.

In the kitchen you looked for your secret stash of biscuits while the kettle boiled. You put a pot of tea, cups and a pack of Jaffa Cakes on a tray and walked it to Van's bedside table. His room was a mess, but no more than usual. As you walked past the open door of Larry's bedroom you noticed it was equally as bad. Maybe you'd tidy up at some point; do a load of laundry.

Back at the edge of the shower, if Van had moved you couldn't tell. "Van?"

"Yeah?" he whispered, so small.

"Turn the shower off. Come here." As directed, he turned the taps and moved to stand in front of you. You handed him a towel to wrap around his waist while you gently shook the water out of his hair with a second towel. You dried his face with the corner of it. He watched you with bloodshot eyes. You held his face in your hands. "Oh, Van, honey."

He collapsed onto the bed. You threw some clean underwear and his Father John Misty tshirt at him. He worked on getting dressed. The underwear sat lower than they should. He was lying on his stomach, and he'd not bothered to hook them to his hipbones. The tshirt was scrunched in his hand. You stood next to him. "Come on, Van. Help me out," you asked in the most gentle tone you could produce. He twisted his head so that his face wasn't pressed into mattress, and looked at you.

"I don't want a shirt," he said. You nodded, and held the hoodie out. He shook his head. "You wear it."

"Why?" you asked as you pulled his underwear up properly and climbed onto the bed next to him.

"I like it when you wear my clothes."

Anything to get him out of the gloom. You pulled the hoodie over your head and pushed the sleeves up as far as they would go. It was big enough that your skirt disappeared underneath it. You poured two cups of tea, and picked up a Cake. You laid on your stomach next to him and waved it in front of his face. He didn't move. You tapped his lips with it lightly. "Jaaaa-faaaa-caaaa-ke," you sung. He tried not to smile but the corners of his mouth flicked up just a little. He parted his lips and took a bite. You patiently fed him the rest of it. You both ate and drank without talking. You watched the wind carry leaves around outside through the window. Van watched you. When the packet was empty and the tea was cold, he returned to his motionless state.

Both on your stomach, arms crossed in front of you with your heads rested on them, you looked at each other. "You don't want to talk?" you asked. He shook his head. You moved closer and ran your fingers through his hair. His eyes closed. You pulled gently and let him just feel the good. You traced the bumps along his spine. "Do you remember that game we used to play at recess when we were little?"

"The drawing on your back one?" Van mumbled.

"Yeah. Let's do that." He nodded. The game was to write a word or draw a picture on the other person's back, and they'd have to guess what it is. You traced a love heart on Van's skin.

"Heart. Too easy."

You wrote your name. He guessed it just as quick. You wrote out his full name.

"Do it again." You did. He gave up and smiled when you told him. You kept going, alternating between images and sentence fragments. As the minutes ticked by, Van became more animated. You could physically feel some of the tension leave his shoulders. When your wrist began to ache from the angle you were using it at, you folded your arms back under your head.

"No more. My hand hurts," you told him and he made a small whine.

He moved to hold his hand out, and you took it. He rearranged so that your hand was resting next to you, palm up. He scratched lines from your fingertips, down your palm, past your wrist, all the way to your elbow, and back again. One of your secret favourite things was having your hands touched and scratched gently like that. You don't remember if you ever explicitly told Van, or if he just worked it out at some point. You closed your eyes and let him keep going. He flipped your hand over and traced all the little lines on your knuckles, and chipped at the nail polish with his own nails. Maybe ten, fifteen minutes transpired before you opened your eyes. How he had stayed focused on such a small part of you was a miracle. He didn't look bored. His blue eyes were clearer, and he gave you a small smile.

"What else?" he asked.

"What else what?" you replied.

"You've got the hand thing. What else do you like?"

Having a verbal conversation specifically about what made your body feel good seemed out of place in the context of a friendship. If you thought about it though, your friendship with Van was unconventional in many ways. More than anything else, you wanted to make him feel better, and second to that you really fucking liked when he touched you. So, you thought about it.

"Normal stuff, I guess?" you finally settled on, a little disappointed in your own lack of imagination. You couldn't think of anything that wasn't too close to the boundary line.

"Like what?"

"I don't know. Like, when people play with my hair, I guess. I don't know, Van. Doesn't matter," you started to sit up. You felt flushed and a little freaked out; found out. He pulled you back down and held you close to him.

"I'm sorry, come here," he said. You let yourself turn to jelly. "I just… You always help. You do all this nice stuff and I don't know how to say thank you properly, or pay you back,"

"You don't need to. That's just what friends do,"

"No, Y/N. It's more. You do more than that. I don't know how to explain it," he said.

You settled down in his arms. He had one wrapped around you and the other let his hand twist your hair into curls around his fingers. As he played with your hair, you felt those little pins and needles on your scalp that sent goosebumps down your spine. Your head was resting on his chest and you traced his jawline with your index finger, and followed the line down his neck and along his collarbones. 

When your eyes fluttered open you realised you had fallen asleep. The evening had turned to night and the sky looked like a watercolour. Your stomach growled with hunger, but the slow even rhythm of Van's breathing, his rising and falling chest, told you he was still sleeping. You counted the freckles on his arm like sheep and tried to go back to sleep.

Another bandage on another wound. Another night to heal. Another whispered reassurance. Small comforts. You wondered if all these times would culminate into something more, but that was a thought for another day. On that day, in that hour, all that mattered was how electric you could make Van's skin feel, and how complete you made each other.


End file.
